Waxing and Waning

When I was in studio earlier tonight on my way back to my desk, a friend waylaid me. "Isn't it funny in the hundreds of thousands of years that the earth has existed - isn't it strange that man has built everything that has been built in this span of time and we have to learn how to build it?"

I paused and replied, "Mmhmm. This is just a blip in the scheme of things. There's a whole universe out there."

"Why aren't we studying the cosmos?"

I shrugged. We sighed and resumed studying.

Later, about 1:30 am, I was walking back to Walsh and was arrested by the sight of the moon. It was sort of a hazy and humid night and it hung there, full and weirdly luminous, casting a bone colored glow under a curtain of cloud. I wondered how many people stop to look at the moon and consider the weirdness of its existence. We live on a planet in orbit, a small piece of an entire galaxy surrounded by and composed of literally countless masses of orbiting, floating stuff, and we're not even phased (no pun intended) by the moon. For a brief moment it made me very happy to remember there is so much that is larger than deadlines.